Landscape near Coppermine, N.W.T., 1959

Dominion Gallery, Toronto Private Collection, Ontario By descent to the present Private Collection, Kingston

A.Y. Jackson, "A Painter’s Country", Toronto, 1958, pages 135, 184

In 1928 A.Y. Jackson travelled north with Sir Frederick Banting, a fellow artist and medical doctor, to Great Slave Lake and Fort Resolution in the Northwest Territories. Jackson returned often, noting, “Every chance I get I go by plane up into the tundra, into the Barren Lands.... I’m perfectly happy to be put down with my pack up among these rivers and lakes, perhaps two or three hundred miles from the nearest human being.” Jackson returned to the Northwest Territories in September 1959, camping at Lac Rouvière and Bathurst Inlet, south of the Dismal Lakes and the Coppermine River, which flows through the tundra into the Arctic Ocean. Jackson's artistry masterfully captures the grandeur and vibrancy of the northern landscape in "Landscape Near Coppermine, N.W.T.", intertwining moss-laden slopes, crimson flora, and spruce trees into a rich autumnal tapestry. His dynamic composition from this September 1959 trip mirrors the rolling hills and soft, blue sky above, evoking the abundant energy of the Far North's remarkable ecosystem. After these adventurous excursions, Jackson would return to his studio with sketches to be painted as larger canvases, sharing, “We, with our notes and sketches, hoped to give Canadians some idea of the strange beauty of our northern possessions”.